Paradox
by Moon Witch '96
Summary: Drabble series. Rose Tyler has always been on the jeopardy friendly side. A paradox? She's been the cause of that before, thank you very much, and wants nothing to do with them. But the Master has always been a stubborn fellow, and here she goes again. And now, she's in a race across time and space to set things right. Typical really. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

Rose Tyler had always had a knack for understanding when something was wrong. The Doctor had liked to call it her 'sixth' sense, though of course he would then go on a long rant to the number of actual sixth senses humanity would develop in the course of history, and say sadly she was just very observant, but well, that was the Doctor. Now, Rose could only stare at those gorgeous brown eyes of his again, her fingers gripping at the damn lever again, and she felt as if she couldn't breathe.

A song, loud and alarmed sounded in the back of her head like she thought she never would hear again. It was a warning, telling her softly to calm down and reassuring her even while it screamed of her own worry. She felt the whirl and pull of the void, she heard the daleks and cybermen screams as the rushed passed her.

And once again, her fingertips began to slip.


	2. Chapter 2

"ROSE! JUST HOLD ON!"he cried out, and it was an echo of the memory inside her head...

Somethings wrong, she thought again, blinking rapidly and trying hard to focus... And tried desperately, even if this was a strange dream, to hold on to that stupid lever. But again, just like before, just like a year ago, she couldn't, despite her need, despite all the strength that had been put into her body through her in course of her time spent with him was useless.

And she fell.

All.

Over.

Again.


	3. Chapter 3

Just like before he screamed, and someone caught her 'round the waist. But her body tense at the feel, or the way that he placed his nose in the crock of her neck, or how tightly held on as he disappeared. And it wasn't that normal, familiar feel of her father gripping at her. It was too intimate. Too possessive. Not the way he had held onto her the first time, soft, tentative, as if he couldn't be sure of what he was doing.

And then she was swept away with a whirl, her stomach turning as the Doctor screamed after her, and she clutched at the arm around her waist even as she reached for him. The world spun and turned black, whirling whirling, a spinning mass that made her very mind spin with it and made her stomach reach her head and push against her lungs then swoop back down.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the worst thing she ever experienced, even worse than that time the Doctor accidentally brought her to an amusement park meant for humans way sturdier than her twentieth century self, and had gotten her concussed on the merry-go-round. She gasped as she felt herself being released, falling onto her knees, _hard_, and she wrenched, gagging really, somehow not up chucking altogether... Nearly, losing her lunch as her world spun, and as she felt her head settle.

"Well... That was exciting."said a male voice, and weakly, Rose turned around, and the man in front of her smiled, a big goofy grin that didn't reach his dark eyes. He made no move towards her to help her, only watched her with those dark, deep eyes, searching for something, what, she couldn't say.

It wasn't her father, that much was obvious to her even as she felt the room spin. He was a man in his mid-thirties, brunette, short hair, and wearing a neat suit which screamed wealth. His foot tapped impatiently in a neat, expensive dress shoe, and on his wrist, a big, black smoking thing, and he tossed that aside with a fling, a look of disinterest as he did that. He tapped out a four beat rythme, tap-tap-tap-tap, a steady, rushing beat, his foot going again and again, like a nervous tick. Rose blinked, taking him in as she noted dimly and with a leap of her heart that she was inside the TARDIS.

"What the hell?"she asked, because, really, what the bloody hell?

He laughed, all giggles and bouncy feet in a way that made her skin crawl. Careful to keep her eye on the man, she pushed herself to her feet, noting that something was very, very, wrong. Call it a hunch, call it the damn red light flashing in the console room or the fact that she could hear the TARDIS screaming in alarm in the back of her head... But really, something was very, very, wrong.

"Rose Tyler."he said carefully, and he took a single step closer. Rose, liking very much the distant between her and the man, took a step closer to the TARDIS console.

She hummed urgently at her to come closer.

"That's me. And I know for damn sure that whatever you've done to get me here is very wrong. Now this is the point where I ask: Who. The. Hell. Are. You?!"she said it in her best Torchwood captain voice, strong, steady, and pissed as hell.

He smiled, all softness and tenderness. Like a snake before a meal.

"We're in the TARDIS. Dashingly saved you from falling into the a parallel world. New face, same man... We've been through this all before Roooose Tyler."he said carefully, tugging at his tie, grinning again.

And then her heart stopped and rose all at once.


	5. Chapter 5

Part of Rose wanted to believe him. Because that meant that he went back to save her. That the Doctor did the impossible and risked a paradox for her. But, no, that wasn't what he did. She knew, she had been there, Bad Wolf Bay, she had died, she had watched him disappear with that stupid, promising sentence half said. She had been working her ass off to find him again, and today, it had been another day like all the days before, dull as hell at her desk, writing up a report of her about the alien time-loop and the exploding gelatin incident and then, she had blinked, a song soft and wonderful had echoed in her head, and suddenly was back at the damn moment her life went to hell.

She gritted her teeth.

"What was the first thing you ever said to me, then?"she asked, and she watched as he blinked.

She smiled tightly as he blinked again, and took a step closer.

"Go on, tell me, _Doctor._"she said and he licked his lips, rubbing his hands together before clapping.

"Hello there, let my dashing self save your life?"he said, and it sounded like a question.

Rose smiled, and if she had been able to see herself, she would have noticed how wolfish her smile was. The man certainly did not see it either, and smiled back, arms outstretched as he went to hug her, but Rose instead straight up kicked him in the stomach, knocking him back to his arse, his smile disappeared, a gasp escaping his lips. He blinked at her.

"Wrong answer."she said simply, shifting into a stance, stumbling slightly in her boots, but she knew she would have made both Jack and her martial arts instructor at Torchwood somewhat proud.

And then the mad man with his ass against the grating was laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

"Of course, had to try. Well, tried to be nice Rose Tyler, but,well, you had to be a smart little monkey. "he said with a hearty chuckle.

Rose sighed, and wondered dimly if all aliens had to insult the human race.

"Ape, thank you very much."

"Cheeky monkey."he muttered, and he jumped up with a disturbing ease.

She licked her lips, and tried not to flinch as he stepped forward.

"Take one more step and I swear I'll knock you into next week. Now, who the hell are you and where is the Doctor?"she asked, and she kept her Torchwood voice to avoid her voice from faltering.


	7. Chapter 7

He smiled, all glittering white and loveliness and she had to stop herself from flinching away, because this man was not only causing a paradox on a massive scale, but he also had the TARDIS, and that was bad on so many levels, and Rose hadn't felt this scared since the Doctor had told her that they would never see each other again.

"I, Rose Tyler, am the Master."

He had said this with a smile, and a flair, bowing his head like a gentleman and extending his arms and swishing them around.

"Let me guess, Megalomania, Narcissistic, and some form of personal vendetta against the Doctor?"she asked, and was somewhat amused as the man nodded to each of her assessments. He laughed, head throwing back in his mirth.

"Oh, oh, I can see why he kept you around! Well, other than that whole undying devotion thing, oh, and that pesky little act of you absorbing the time vortex."

Rose felt a tingle and the screams of the TARDIS increase in the back of her head.

"I did what?"


	8. Chapter 8

The answer grin he gave her was downright devious.

"Oooh, the little monkey doesn't know?"

The fact that the TARDIS told her in not so many words to get closer to the console made something in Rose shiver. But, she followed her instructions, gripping and clinging at her and wishing for the life of her that she was back at her stupid desk at Torchwood and away from the 'Master', wishing stupidly she was back there and wishfully thinking about the trans-dimensional cannon, not with this damn... Person in the midst of something that would most likely hurt a lot of people.

"Please... Just... Don't."she had been this close to getting back to him, the cannon had nearly been ready for its first test, and while part of her desperately want to take this chance to avoid the year in Pete's World in the first place...

But she doubted the universe would be that kind to let her.

"Oh... Oh, oh,oh, don't worry little lamb, the big, Bad Wolf won't hurt you."he said, and he was smiling, all gentle and easy as he took out a gun.


	9. Chapter 9

And just like that, her world went into hyper focus... Those words... That name.

"What did you just say?"because that name was meant to tell her something. A message that she saw everywhere and to her...

It was... Her's?

"I won't hurt you."he said, and he aimed the gun at her heart, the sound of the safety being taken off echoed loudly along with the TARDIS' song as it increased in volume.

Somehow, she found herself giggling. Even with the gun... Or maybe because of the gun. She remembered desperation and the Daleks, a song loud and bright and wonderful, just as desperate as her and she remembered love and devotion and burning...

"No. Bad Wolf. Say that again." and she gripped tightly at the console as the sound of the TARDIS song softened, her screams trailed off to something that seemed like laughter. Mocking, loud and directed at the man in front of her.

The Master blinked, his brows furrowing, and he turned to look at the TARDIS' console, looking irritated. Telepathic, noted Rose, a good one at that if he could hear the TARDIS, and she laughed along with the beloved ship.

"Bad wolf?"asked the man, alien, whatever he was, irately, and Rose grinned at the confusion he showed.

"Bad Wolf... That's _mine_."she said, and part of her wondered if she should be concerned at the way her voice seem to echo with...

Power... And it... Was what.. She... Was given. Given to create herself. And just like that.

Rose knew, and somewhere inside her, a howling of a fierce, fierce strength sang out along with the golden song.


	10. Chapter 10

The Master took a startled step back, his eyes, squinting at the TARDIS before, suddenly wide as he turned to stare at her, mouth agape. Rose felt a rush... A rush of warmth in her veins suddenly, deep and growing from her the very tips of her fingers to the end of every nerve. She felt soon as if she was on fire. If she could have seen herself, she would note that her hazel-brown eyes had turned a striking molten gold.

"What the hell?"

It grew, grew, and the TARDIS whispered in her heart, in her mind, and she ignored the startled shoots of the man as the TARDIS beckoned her closer, the warmth of her song like an embrace to her being, and she said, quite clearly in her sing-song voice:

"_Turn my beloved Wolf._"

Rose started to turn her head, to where that sweet, familiar song was loudest, and then of course the Master shoot her.

"Don't you dare ignore me! You can't ignore ME!"he screeched as Rose crumpled, and her chest hurt like a bitch as she watched a macbre, brilliant rose bloom in the center of her chest.

She looked at him, with his wild eyes and the song of the TARDIS throughout her body, and, despite the pain in her chest, she smiled, tongue-in-teeth.

"Watch me."she said simply, and turned away from him, and the heart of the TARDIS laid bare, open for her, just as she had forced it open before.

Only this time she did not walk away and rush off to find her Doctor, but staggered to the opening, and with the heart reaching for her with long, wide arms of gold, she fell in.

Down,down, down, into light and song.


	11. Chapter 11

Rose Tyler didn't know the difference between time and space. Up, down, sideways, gravity or the passage of time and space... It didn't quite work that way and anymore, inside the heart of the TARIDS, it was a maelstrom of everything at once, a swirling mass of golden songs that she felt in her very bones, deep into the marrow and all across her nerves, burning deep and hot, loud and soft, until it was all she really felt. It was so comforting, like a blanket she had had as a child, familiar and safe. A blanket she had sorely missed and she found herself reaching for it, just as it reached for her.

And so they both wound into each other, the TARDIS looking deeper into her heart and Rose deeper, and deeper into the TARDIS's heart. Both, if they had been able to at that moment, would have sighed in a long overdue sigh of relief...


	12. Chapter 12

It was beautiful. And it was terrible. But at the same time Rose Tyler felt as if being part of the song, the very heart, was like coming home after a very long day. Rose needed to feel that, ached to feel that, so she threw herself into it, just as the TARDIS threw herself at her Wolf, a deep urgency in her as she looked into her, knowing that something was coming. Something great and terrible would happen to her precious pink and yellow haired girl, and the only way she could protect her precious, lost little Wolf was to give her the means to create herself, all over again.

Give her back her fangs and claws like never before so that she would save herself from the fate that awaited her...


	13. Chapter 13

They lost themselves in each other, the pink and yellow girl and the blue box, creatures of time and flesh all at once as they looked at through each other to the very essences of the other. Both, if they could have distinguished themselves as separate at that endless, moment, eternity, or however long they looked into each other, they would have quite liked what the other saw.

One saw emotions and deep, deep compassion that flew across time and space, with brilliant thoughts and a whirlwind of hormones and funny little chemical triggers that baffled her. She saw the Valiant child and the Bad Wolf, strong and bold, fragile, Rose Tyler with her pink and yellow nature. She became her in a sense, all tiny and bigger on the inside(just like her!), and with aching flesh that burned and silly things like toes, which she wiggled out of sheer delight.

The other saw a enormous mass of golden song, time and space, across eleven dimensions and everywhere but nowhere all at once. She saw and felt the beat of the time vortex and she found herself becoming her. She was that silly blue box that was non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint -like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff, all uppy down and wonderful and strange and a quirky old thing that sang out with the beat of the song of the universe, the last of her kind.

Together, in each other's hearts, they felt invisible, untouchable, and they were, apart from all and untouched. However, at the same time, they could not touch the universe, and frozen within the other.


	14. Chapter 14

It was after an eternity of this,(or was it just a moment?) that they both stepped back from the other's hearts, knowing that they could not dwell too deeply, even if they wanted nothing but to stay together for all of time and space, and the eldest, the being with more wisdom than the even the Doctor had in his smallest little finger, reached out and blanketed her precious Wolf into the deepest corner of her heart. They had things to do, and her little Wolf had a long journey ahead of her if she wanted to stop her wretched faith. However, first, the TARDIS needed to find just exactly what her Wolf's journey was...

Time was a thing that even the TARDIS had to figure out at times, after all, it was strange and vast like an ocean to drift through, or a fabric to stretch and pull out until one found just the right strand in an endless interwoven cloth that never ended. Now it was just a matter of finding that pesky strand.


	15. Chapter 15

So the TARDIS searched on, her consciousness reaching out to sort through the threads of time, the would bes and the maybes, the have to bes and the things that would, could never be. Each string connected to her Wolf was swirling and spiraling thin braid of gold, ringing out with a mixture of the TARDIS's own golden song and the Wolf's sweet, pink and yellow one. Some where thicker and louder with her personal song. Some where short but most stretched out to the very end of time. Some interwove themselves with their Thief, but most were with her Wolf alone and howling across all of time and space with the song that was just as much the TARDIS's as it was the Wolf's.

It was terrible and lonely, and it all of those ended with her Wolf ending with the universe alternate or not, hearing the screams of children ring out against endless nothingness... The TARDIS watched with something akin to horror at that fate, for it was the most prevalent of all. Her Wolf always ended alone with the screams of the end of the universe in her ears. She pushed away those endless strands away.

Screaming out with frustration as it left her with only a few hundred possibilities out what was once an infinite amount. She huffed at the stupid, silly universe for giving her a hard time. The Wolf deserved more than this! She growled, tossing aside the strands that left her without their Thief. There were only a few hundred or so left, and the TARDIS wondered if pulling the consciousness of her Wolf from her older body in wake of the Master's idiotic tampering worth the pain she felt from being able to see all of her Wolf's time-lines at once. Tucked deeply in her heart, with something akin to sleeping, she joined the TARDIS's song gently, not knowing the types of fate that awaited.


	16. Chapter 16

Rose felt herself become a part of the song, her body melting away into time and space and warmth and song...She was apart of the TARDIS's heart, a note and rhythm in the loud gentle song and network of arching webs and complex loops, swirls. A pulse beating, a stutter of a time beat older than the universe itself. Lost in it and apart of it...


	17. Chapter 17

It took the TARDIS exactly a hundred and sixty-nine years, a hundred and four days, and thirteen hours, to sort through all of the strands that belonged to her Wolf. She looked at the signal, golden strand that was... The least horrible of all. It sang out golden and true, tucked between two other lines that were nearly the most horrible of all. It was a thin one, a slim chance for it to occur. But, if anything, the TARDIS, after centuries of traveling, of living and so forth, after watching gods and goddess coming and going, she believed in one thing... She believed in her Wolf, just as their Thief had, just as he did, just as he always would.


	18. Chapter 18

It was hard to tell for her when the song around her changed. Or really when it changed to the point where Rose felt like Rose again. It was like an easing, gentle nudge that warmed her and made her aware of herself again, like she had just woken up after a long, deep sleep. Groggy and not quite being use to herself, she opened her eyes in a flurry of constant blinking. All she saw was knots upon knots, loops and intersecting webs of the most brilliant gold, all pulsing in tandem with the notes of that familiar song that made up the heart.

It was warm and like being embraced, and Rose wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and sleep again... and against the warning of the song, Rose felt herself slip away again.


	19. Chapter 19

At this point Rose still wasn't quite a physical being, she didn't feel her still aching and torn up chest, or how parched her throat was, or the distinct feeling of weightlessness of being suspended in time and song. No, she was just a collective of what made her Rose, stray thoughts and emotions, primal and higher motions bound together by a golden string of time and song.

But then, quite suddenly Rose felt it all, pain and toes and things like that with a sharp jolt back into her physical body.

"You're going to have to battle for that right strand. The one that is the least terrible. Or you have... or you will." The voice that sang to Rose Tyler echoed with that precious song around her.

It was warmth and right and if she had been able, Rose would have nodded in agreement to what it said. She understood to some extent what she needed to do.

"What happen at the battle's end?"she asked, and she felt afraid.

The song was afraid as well. But it was stronger than her, older, and wiser, confident in her in a way that only the Doctor.. Thief, mad man with a box had been...

"Mercy, happiness, sadness one of the three or all. It depends on you. She just has to figure out your name."

"Who's she?"she asked, confused yet not at the same time.

"The Star. The one that loved a Phantom. Loves. Will love."

That named stirred something up inside Rose, and she found herself curious.

"What is she to me?"

"Salvation. Damnation. Both, neither. Find her. Found her... have to find her. At the end, she will have your name, and the paradox will, has, had ended."

"I'm afraid Sexy... that's your name, or is it Idris? TARDIS?"she asked, because it was all a confused muddle in her head, all information whirling at her in a storm of could bes and things that had come to pass.

"So am I Wolf. So am I. And not yet. Not quite. Not ever. Maybe soon. Go, before I keep you along with your physical form."The TARDIS-Idris-Sexy said, urgently and pleading.

"You will take me where I need to go?"asked Rose, though she already knew the answer, and she got a laugh.

"I always did. I always have, and I always will."she said, and it was warm and soft, and full of song.

And then Rose Tyler's consciousness left the Heart of the TARDIS.


	20. Chapter 20

Martha Jones was just seven years old when she met the best friend she could ever have. She was in the bathroom, it was dark, and she felt silly.

"Bloody Mary."she said plainly into the mirror, and she heard the slight titters of her friends outside before she knocked harshly against the door, and they scattered, giggling and squealing.

"Bloody Mary."she repeated.

Nothing happened, and Martha felt herself snort. Of course nothing happened she thought with a huff. Nothing was ever going to happen, Bloody Mary wasn't real... It was a story to scare babies. She had only agreed to this because Tish had gone and embarrassed her in front of her friends. Calling her afraid! She wasn't afraid of anything, especially not silly made up ghosts.

"Bloody Mary." She cried, and she was grinning at the silly game.

Then she started to laugh when her friends pounded on the doors to scare her... When two golden eyes suddenly looked back at her from the mirror, her laughter turned into screams.


	21. Chapter 21

Bloody Mary was a bottle blonde.

Somehow, that was not something Martha had expected. She stumbled out of the mirror, golden eyes swirling and hazy, and Martha herself found herself screaming as she pressed her back against the door, and the laughter of her friends was constant until suddenly they were pounding on the door in concern. Martha only screamed louder as the figure, wrapped in a golden, fierce light turned to her.

She was a young woman, with big lips and a strong jaw, and these eyes... Her hair had been blonde, with dark roots at the end, and that floated around her with an unseen wind. Her chest dripped with blood onto the floor, and Martha noticed with a jolt that it would fade after a second or two... Then, quite suddenly, the light around the young woman faded, as did the wind that had whipped about her clothes, and though her eyes still weren't normal, intensely gold as they were, they weren't that burning, hazy gold light. She had pupils and everything. The young woman blinked for a second, touching at her chest with a curious look on her face.

"Oh."she said, and then, of course, Bloody Mary collapsed on top of Martha.


End file.
